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All posts by Michael
Below are all of Michael's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.I'd take issue with several of the 2025 predictions:
Full HD hasn't been a runaway success and I don't think people will switch to 4k or UHD until they are the standard and don't command any additional premium, especially if more video content is consumed on mobile devices where the screen really isn't big enough to warrant anything more than 'standard' HD;
I agree re PVRs going solid state and increasingly being replaced by USB-stick size devices, that's happening already;
I don't see a widespread switch to pay-per-month services necessarily happening either. The popularity of Freeview has been due to its 'free' nature. There are also technical issues re universal internet availability and bandwidth; there are people in rural areas not that far from major towns now who still can't get anything you'd call properly broadband, let alone 20Mbps. Unless the government funds it, I can't see BT being in the business of giving anyone (let alone everyone) free connectivity at any speed.
The other option for rural connectivity I suppose is that if more of the frequency spectrum now used for Freeview is given over to 4G then 5G that might provide an alternative with fast enough connection for usable video on demand, but it's still limited by geography.
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Any signs that anyone will make a Freeview Play set-top box available for use with older TVs? I've recently upgraded ours and wasn't planning to buy any more for a few years but our increasing use of iPlayer suggests that Freeview Play would be worth having.
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"Perhaps there are quite a few businesses with agendas that are anything but hidden" - those wouldn't include any owned Australian media mogul, would they?
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Tuesday 28 October 2014 12:58PM
Tunbridge Wells
Under your 'why isn't HD more popular' idea I'd suggest (based on the purely anecdotal evidence of my own family, a statistically insignificant number) that there might be a gender bias - the female family members can see the difference with HD but don't consider it an improvement compared to the importance of programme quality (in the editorial/critical sense), while males see it and prefer it, no matter how bad the material being viewed.
Anyone else found this?